domestic violence – Prawn of the Patriarchy

The Australian federal election of 2019: Men & boys remain invisible

The last Federal election in Australia was held on 18 May 2019, and was won by the Liberal/National Party coalition. It shaped up to be very similar to the last one with regards to the complete lack of attention given to men’s/boys issues. Oh, but rest assured, we didn’t have to “sit by and watch another election devoid of issues that matter to women“. Au contraire!

And on that note, where is the male equivalent of ‘Women Vote Au’? They claim to be wholly funded by donations. Again the implication in all their material is that women’s issues are largely being ignored … how then would you describe the treatment of issues relating to men and boys? And yet even in late April journalists were still asserting that women’s issues are being ignored.

The first gender-related issue raised in the campaign proper was the use of gender quotas to attempt to increase the number of female politicians. The emphasis here was on bashing the Liberal Party regarding its (alleged) serious ‘women problem’ (example).

Not surprisingly the issue of domestic violence soon made an appearance:

In February 2019 I noted that “Morrison promises $78 million for combatting domestic violence“. And we’re back to the future. But on a brighter note, here’s an excellent response from Augusto Zimmermann. (What a shame Augusto wasn’t appointed as the replacement for Elizabeth Broderick at the Australian Human Rights Commission)

Labor pledges $60m to help victims of domestic violence rebuild their lives (4 March 2019)

Coalition pledges an extra $328m to counter domestic violence (5 March 2019)

I know, it’s an aside, but I can’t help but wonder how many Australian female pollies have belted their partners, and whether their colleagues would support them in the same manner that British MP Ms Layla Moran was supported:

Liberal Democrat support of Layla Moran – politicians seven times more likely to support female perpetrators of domestic violence than to criticise them (29 March 2019) UK.

And then a touch of American (Democrat) politics crept in …

Election to become showdown on abortion as Labor launches policy (6 March 2019) Labor pledging free, public hospital terminations should it win office.

The next thing, the feminist lobby looked around and noticed lobbying by the Australian Better Families Party, and no doubt some of the many, many, reader’s comments being attached to pro-feminist articles in the mainstream media.

Misleading political campaigns? No thanks, we’ve had enough, by Anna Kerr (22 March 2019). Who would have thought that seeking recognition and support for male victims of domestic violence translates to a notion that the Men’s Rights Movement “denies the gendered nature of domestic violence”? Well, Team Harpy clearly does.

And then the focus swings back to domestic violence as Bill Shorten ups his promised amount of $$$ as described in ‘Labor targets family violence, Coalition funds skills as campaign resumes‘ (26 April 2019)

What’s in the 2019 Budget for women? Very little (3 April 2019) And yet far more, it would certainly seem, than was allocated to men.

And given that no-one has published *anything* to date about the impact of the budget on men & boys, here’s more on the female perspective courtesy of ‘Mamamia’:

These are the biggest winners and losers of the 2019 Federal Budget (2 April 2019) A $150 million funding package for women’s sport? Nice

What did Tuesday’s Federal Budget actually do for women? We break it down (4 April 2019) Note that ‘Domestic Violence’ is listed as something we (women) “got”, so I guess male victims shouldn’t get their hopes up then? “But on the whole, women are not the winners in this budget“. Huh? Countless millions down for women, but apparently someone else’s way better off.

‘No vision or strategy for women’: An overview of the Budget’s impact (5 April 2019)

On 3 May 2019 our Prime Minister claimed that “disrespect of women is the real issue“.

And then … “Prime Minister Scott Morrison will on Saturday announce a $75 million package to help women back into the workforce after looking after their children or elderly parents.

Mr Frydenberg said career checks will be aimed at women aged 30 to 45 so they can get professional advice and training.

Sport is also on the agenda for the prime minister, who will be campaigning in Melbourne.

Mr Morrison wants to spend $70 million on upgrading sports facilities and creating high performance facilities.

He’s also promised $15 million to set up a permanent home in Melbourne for the national women’s soccer team, the Matildas. Senator McKenzie said the government wants women athletes to have high performance facilities “just like the guys do”.” (Source)

Existing party policies specifically related to gender (where one or more could be readily identified):

The Liberal Party: Supporting Australian Women

The National Party: Safer Regional Communities (refer to Protecting and supporting women and children)

The Labor Party: Australian Women – Labor’s Plan for Equality. “A Shorten Labor Government will put achieving gender equality for Australian women at the centre of our priorities with a National Strategy for Gender Equality.” This translates into more than $1.2 billion in hand-outs.

The Labor Party: Gender Equality and Women’s Rights (page 174) and Preventing Violence Against Women and Children (page 176)

The Greens: Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women

Interesting observation in an article concerning a recent development at Melbourne University: “In the lead up to the federal election, the insidious nature of identity politics is even more apparent than usual” (23 April 2019)

As an aside, what is the cost of this grossly inequitable division of government funds and support for women/girls versus men/boys? Here’s one perspective (USA video).

Some post-election wash-up:

‘Coordination and targeting of domestic violence funding and actions‘, Auditor-General report No. 45 2018/19 (p7), stated “Total expenditure by the Commonwealth across the life of the National Plan to date, is around $723 million” (June 2019)

‘Choking on wokeness’ by Miranda Devine (29 May 2019)

Elsewhere in this blog you might also be interested in the following posts:

Partners in alms: A primer on the ‘Domestic Violence Industry’

Australian taxpayer-funded organisations that do little/nothing for men (other than demonising them)

Dealing with men’s issues – The current situation in Australia

Re-instatement of the Women’s Budget Statement in Australia? Bring it on, but consider men too

Sadly, Australian politicians only find the courage to criticise the feminist lobby after they retire

No to Violence: Working together to end men’s family violence

The No to Violence agency (‘NTV’), also known as the Male Family Violence Prevention Association, appears to be populated by ardent pro-feminists. Despite that, surprisingly one third of the board members are male. Of those staff listed in the web site, seven are female and three are male.

In January 2019 I was blocked from the twitter stream of the CEO of NTV, Jacqui Watt, without explanation. I became aware of Jacqui’s stream via browsing the Twitter stream @OurWatch CEO, Patty Kinnersly.

NTV do not appear to be listed in the ACNC register, but relevant details including a copy of their 2018 annual report are available in their web site.

NTV is heavily supported by the Victorian government and their annual report acknowledges receipt of almost $3.9 million in grant funding for the year ending 30 June 2018.

In this 2014 submission NTV sought to undermine the integrity of the ‘One in Three‘ organisation.

Anyone wishing to complain about NTV or the conduct of specific staff members should familiarise themselves with the Complaints Procedure.

I will add to this page as further details are recovered.

West Australian inquiry into family & domestic violence (2019)

I heard about the development of this strategy via the One in Three organisation, and the relevant page in the WA government agency’s web site is here.

The deadline for submissions has been extended to 30 May 2019.

The deadline to complete the online questionnaire (a worthwhile alternative if you are too pressed for time to prepare a submission) is also 30 May 2019.

“The State Government is developing a 10 Year Strategy for Reducing Family and Domestic Violence in Western Australia (the Strategy). It will guide a whole of community approach to prevention and earlier intervention, victim safety and perpetrator accountability.

The Strategy will include a focus on access and inclusion, and consider the unique and diverse needs of Aboriginal people, people with disability, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, LGBTQ+ people, and people in regional and remote Western Australia.”

The proposed vision of the strategy is stated as being “A future where all Western Australians live free from family and domestic violence, and where women and children are safe, respected, valued and treated as equals in private and public life.”

So bad luck if you believe the government also has a duty to keep men safe, respected and valued. Nah-ah. Not a priority. Not gonna happen. And yet another instance of #GenderEqualityWhenItSuits.

I have already completed the questionnaire, and as and when I prepare a submission I will post a link to it on this page.

By way of background, some other references to related West Australian ‘initiatives’ or news can be found here.

Some observations regarding online information concerning filicide

I was browsing Twitter the other evening and noted a reference to a UK article entitled ‘Violent fathers given access to children even after 50 deaths‘. The Twitter thread to which I subsequently responded can be found here.

I queried whether (in the UK) more children were killed by their mother or father, and I included a link to an earlier post I prepared regarding filicide that shows, amongst other things, that in Australia the biological mother kills more children.

Another poster then provided a link to a 2013 University of Manchester article entitled ‘Findings from most in-depth study into UK parents who kill their children‘. The study relied upon a 10-year consecutive case series of convicted homicides and homicide-suicides (01/01/97-31/12/06) in England and Wales. That paper defined ‘filicide’ as “a homicide committed by a parent or adult in-loco parentis, with the victim aged under 18.”

The article noted that:

“Overall, fathers were significantly more likely to kill their children than mothers, and were more likely to use violent methods of killing, have previous convictions for violent offences, perpetrate multiple killings, and have a history of substance misuse or dependence.”

I sought to verify the statistical source and compare this with other sources or studies available online, for which I then went hunting. So what did I find? Well it was interesting (though I note that my research is to be continued as time permits and as I receive responses to both my Twitter posts and this blog post).

Soon afterwards another poster assured me that fathers killed more children, and added “if you factor in that there are only 2% of males who are stay-at-home parents, the vast majority of single parents are women and women do the vast majority of child-rearing, if you considered hours by capita on childcare then the stats would be vastly skewed against men.” He/she then provided a link to a 2017 article in The Conversation entitled ‘Understanding the triggers for filicide will help prevent it‘. If you can spare the time be sure to note the readers comments. My requests for further related/supporting reference works were declined.

Another reference I came across was entitled ‘Filicide: Mental Illness in Those Who Kill Their Children’ (4 April 2013). Note too the following reader’s comment which struck an accord with my own initial thoughts, but to which the authors failed to respond:

“The paper presents information that appears skewed that hides certain details of the sampling. It notes that the significant majority of perpetrators are fathers but this includes Step fathers that is a social construct. This figure portrays fathers as being more likely to kill a child when in fact it is mothers & their partners that are more likely to be the perpetrators. The fathers protective role is supported by the fact that step mothers commit only 2% (in one case) of the cases. Other research in the US including DOJ and Dept of Child Services show that the largest perpetrators of filicide in children under 1 year old are biological mothers.

Do not see a break down of biological fathers vs biological mothers role, and the insistence of including the artificial mix of step fathers/mothers only serve to skew the impressions the media is likely to interpret from this article. The inclusion of step fathers with speaking about fathers is a common ploy seen in media to portray fathers in bad light. In my local area, in the overwhelming majority of times the word “father” is used in a negative context committing a crime against a child, its in fact a step father or mothers boyfriend.

Your statement “Overall, a significantly higher proportion of fathers than mothers were convicted of filicide; a male to female ratio = 2:1” is problematic. You are using courtroom outcomes to determine guilt and severity. We know from several studies that women receive lighter sentences for the same crimes/circumstances in about that same ratio. Examining the data chart is even more troubling. 84 out of 195 male perpetrators (don’t know how you can include step fathers as having committed filicide unless he kills his own biological children) receive the charge of murder compared with 9 out of 102 female perpetrators.

My hypothesis from data collected from government sources in the US, it is clear that the biological fathers role is very protective compared to all other parent ‘figures’. It appears this is also correct in your data if you were to solve a few simple linear equations to arrive at the ratios of biological fathers to mothers as well, and treat each demographic separately. But the statement you make that “I am going to presume that this is by design and qualifies as an example of the “WAW” effect which is a form of bias.”

I also came across ‘Child homicide perpetrators worldwide: a systematic review‘ (date unknown). This paper took a global perspective and noted significant deficiencies in available date, for example:

“Vast differences in the definitions of perpetrator categories only allowed crude comparisons across countries. Categorisation of perpetrators into parents, other family members, acquaintances, strangers and unknown did not capture nuances such as, for example, mothers’ boyfriends, who were considered as acquaintances as there was a lack of information on whether they were solid family members or casual relationships.”

My initial observations include:

That most statistical sources and the papers based on them were relatively dated
That papers were inclined to focus more on the gender of victims rather than perpetrators
That explanations or factors contributing to the crime were sought and discussed more in the case of female perpetrators, than for male perpetrators. In the case of women, the two most common factors seem to be that women spend more time with children and are hence more likely to harm them, and that female killers are more likely to be found to be younger and/or mentally ill.
That the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim was usually identified, but not clearly detailed in the case of differentiating biological father, step father or de-facto partner.
That an unknown, but possibly quite significant, number of murders are apparently excluded from being classed as filicide due to mental illness on the part of the murderer. This would reduce the ratio of female to males sentenced.

One potentially relevant factor not discussed in any of the papers I came across was the gender bias (towards women) in the police and court system, which could involve less women being charged with murder, and with less being found guilty upon being charged.

Other related posts in my blog that may be of interest include:

The often contrasting reaction when mums and dads kill their children

On fathers and their children

Is child abuse a gendered crime too?

Major sporting events & domestic violence myth

Feminists claim a bogus strong link between televised football and/or major sports events such as the U.S Superbowl to sudden surges in the incidence of domestic violence.

By way of background this topic was formally addressed in another of my blog posts entitled ‘Fudging the figures to support the feminist narrative‘.

Given however that the media repeats the same theme in various western countries on a fairly regular basis, I have decided that it merits its own post here. But don’t take my word for it, just try word-searching on google, twitter, etc, using terms like ‘World Cup domestic violence’ or ‘Super Bowl domestic violence’ to find examples such as those listed below.

To start the ball rolling begin by reading ‘The World Cup Abuse Nightmare‘, by Christina Hoff Sommers (10 July 2010)

Australian variants of the same hoax include this 2014 article and one about the NSW State of Origin (2018)

Here’s a couple of recent (2018) World Cup articles (example 1 / example 2)

The Two Englands (12 July 2018)

Manager of Newtown pub fired for ‘joking’ about violence against women (19 July 2018)

(I will progessively add to this list of papers as & when I get time)

Queensland LNP offers up failed measures to address domestic violence

In another post I described the feminist-driven non-event that is the Queensland Government’s approach to tackling domestic violence.

Now with an election just weeks away we have seen domestic violence policies released firstly by One Nation and then yesterday by the Liberal National Party.

The Liberal National Party has offered up nothing new or different, proposing:

A public register to “disclose people’s abusive pasts”
Setting up specialist domestic violence courts
Creating a specific domestic violence offence “to better protect victims”, and
A law change to prohibit perpetrators from personally cross examining their victims in civil or criminal matters

The only box they didn’t tick was a new awareness campaign.

Yes, the first dot point is based on Clare’s Law in the UK – which has been found to be costly and ineffective. The Queensland Government recently came to the same conclusion.

Special domestic violence courts were trialed in Western Australia and then discontinued as they were found to be costly and ineffective.

A new offence. Yes, that’s going to make a big difference. Like the new offence recently proposed for strangulation. We don’t already have enough suitable offences in our legal armory? Oh please! But it sounds effective, right? This particular proposal is discussed in this article.

And who needs to confront their accusers in a court of law? An obviously over-rated legal anachronism.

The LNP could have chosen to offer a real alternative to the policies of the Labor Party. Something bold that went ‘back to the drawing board’, challenging the entire feminist/Duluth model mindset. Something that would reap tangible results in terms of reducing domestic violence, in contrast to the ineffective feeding trough for feminist organisations that the taxpayers are currently supporting.

Instead the LNP have opted for the safe path and offered Queensland voter’s nothing of value or substance, and we are all the poorer for it.

See also:

Sunshine Coast Labor and LNP candidates in radio interview re: domestic violence (21 November 2017) Disappointing yet very predictable comments.

Courier-Mail coverage of the policy release (9 November 2017)

One Nation unveils controversial domestic violence policy (24 October 2017) Strongly criticized by LNP

The Duluth Model: The theoretical basis for the feminist approach to domestic violence

The cornerstone of the feminist approach to domestic violence is known as the ‘Duluth Model’, which is often illustrated as follows:

The Duluth Model is “based in feminist theory positing that domestic violence is the result of patriarchal ideology in which men are encouraged and expected to control their partners”. (Source)

It is my position, and I am certainly not alone in this regard, that applying this theoretical framework to most (let alone all) incidents of domestic violence is highly misleading and inappropriate.

Further, if gender inequality is the most significant precursor in relation to domestic violence, then:

Why is the incidence of domestic violence greater in lesbian couple than in heterosexual couples?

How might one explain the already high and growing levels of female-perpetrated violence generally?

How might one explain the significant geographical variations in the incidence of domestic violence? The chart below, for example, looks at variations in the incidence of DV in the Australian state of New South Wales.

Why does there exist a very considerable number of male victims of domestic violence?

How might one explain the relatively high levels of child abuse and neglect involving single mothers?

Why is the level of domestic violence so high in countries like Sweden that, even feminists would agree, have a higher than average level of gender equality?

These categories or situations of domestic violence are not the inconsequential anomalies that many propose them to be. On the contrary, they constitute very large and substantial pieces of the domestic violence jigsaw.

In an intimate partnership between two people of different genders, an unequal balance of power can be a factor contributing to DV. But what feminists refuse to concede is that the partner asserting most power need not be male, and often isn’t.

The Duluth Model and its chief proponents are discussed at length in this illuminating series of email exchanges (mirror here).

“… the Duluth model essentially views all female transgressions as being self-defensive in nature (even against children!) and can be attributed either to previous victimization by a male or to an allegedly oppressive “patriarchy” (Dutton and Corvo, 2007)”

I would urge you to take a moment now to read Jason Dale’s detailed and insightful commentary.

See also:

You can’t help men by attacking masculinity, by Dr John Barry (27 November 2018)

Setting the record straight on Duluth (6 February 2017)

Taking an in-depth look into domestic violence research – The Duluth Model (6 September 2015)

The Gender Paradigm In Domestic Violence: Research And Theory (2005) by Donald G. Dutton and Tonia L. Nicholls

The Australian Institute of Family Studies – another taxpayer-funded feminist mouthpiece

“The Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) is a Melbourne-based Australian Government statutory agency established in 1980 under the Family Law Act 1975.

The Institute has a proud record of high-quality, responsive and impartial research into the wellbeing of Australian families. Our vision is to make a positive contribution to the wellbeing of Australian families by advancing understanding of the factors affecting Australian families and communicating findings to policy makers, service providers and the broader community.

The Institute operates within the portfolio of the Department of Social Services (DSS) and is responsible to the Minister for Social Services. The Institute has ongoing relationships with various other government agencies, policy makers and the community sector. Staff at the Institute are employed under the Public Service Act 1999.” (Source)

The latest annual report for the AIFS tells us that it burnt through almost eighteen million taxpayer dollars in financial year 2015/16, and that as at 30 June 2016, there were 75 staff (3/4 of whom were female).

Regrettably, the Institute appears to have a strongly feminist orientation and corresponding anti-male bias. Even more regrettably, it is but one of dozens of publicly-funded organisations of similar persuasion.

In June 2017 the AIFS issued a publication entitled ‘Fathers who use violence‘. And no, for reasons that are not acknowledged, there is no corresponding document regarding abusive mothers. Of course the document should have been entitled ‘Parents who use violence‘, but apparently that would have constituted a little too much gender equality for those in the driver’s seat.

Another indicator of the extent of feminist bias in the AIFS is the inclusion within their web site of contributions by Michael Flood (example) who holds views highly antagonistic towards the men’s rights movement. In this example it would have been far more appropriate for Dr. Flood’s view to be presented with a counter-argument provided by someone from the men’s rights movement, but clearly that concept didn’t make it past the powers-that-be (if indeed it was even considered at all). More on Dr. Flood and his tortured relationship with the men’s rights movement here, here, here and here.

Yet more gender bias on display in this report on female sex offending by Senior Research Officer Mary Stathopoulos. Reddit poster ‘DougDante‘ comments thus:

“The bias was clear in the introduction. “the debate”, which is really about providing boys and men equal access to services for victims of domestic and sexual violence, constructed as if doing so would imply that police must be forced to waste resources trying to identify equal numbers of victims and perps of each gender, “is dangerous”.

Denying boy and man victims services and silencing them – not dangerous.

The survey also highlighted shocking disparities in New Zealand where only 0.6% of convictions were against women offenders, more than 5 times lower than other nations. Are women there more moral, or is that a female rapist’s paradise?

Perhaps I missed it, but the authors did not recognize that shocking number a signal of a systematic rape culture that ignores women’s sex crimes, and used it to justify ignoring boy and man victims.

Excuses are often made for female abusers such as in the report when they stated, “most striking feature is a history of previous victimisation”, but male abusers have the same histories!

This is why it’s important that no one be allowed to abuse any child or adult.”

Why is it so very hard for MSM to allow objective airing of men’s issues? The example of Triple J Hack’s ‘debate’

This evening ABC2/Triple J Hack are to broadcast what is billed as a debate on the topic of ‘Is Male Privilege Bullshit‘. In fact it will most likely be nothing more than yet another bigoted feminist soliloquy.

They have most likely scheduled this program due to the considerable amount of recent publicity concerning the screening of the Red Pill movie, and the feminist lobby’s desperate need to try to claw back some credibility.

For background or updates readers can peruse the Twitter streams for @ABC2, @TripleJHack @TomTilley and/or the corresponding Facebook pages.

ABC2 have invited the likes of Clementine Ford and Nakkiah Lui to join the panel. Of course, if you want to have a fair and balanced discussion you invite misandrists onto the panel. If worst comes to worst then the rest of the sisterhood can claim ‘not all feminists are like that‘, then rinse and repeat.

While Karen Straughan (‘GirlWritesWhat’) features in a promo video, sadly she will not be participating on the discussion panel. Cassie Jaye (‘Red Pill’) was to be interviewed (via satellite) during the show but pulled out stating:

“I already see so many warning signs of inherent bias based on the program’s marketing … I don’t see what I can gain by being a part of this when it’s clear that the show is going to give selective and limited airtime to certain guests over others.” (Source)

Additionally, yesterday ABC2 published this biased and misleading article about domestic violence (‘DV’). The focus of the article is an assertion that the Australian finding that one in three victims of domestic violence are male, is false. This is not the first time that Australian feminists have attacked this statistic.

The article quotes well-known anti-men’s rights advocates Michael Flood and Michael Salter, and includes various factual errors as well as misrepresentations of the MRA perspective on the issue of DV.

Here is a rebuttal of that article prepared by Greg Andresen of the One in Three organisation:

“I would greatly appreciate it if you could look into correcting the following factual errors from your article “What about men?: Challenging the MRA claim of a domestic violence conspiracy”:

The article claims, “In the 2012 PSS, about 33 per cent of men said they had experienced an act of violence from a current partner in the last 12 months. The ABS warns the estimate has a standard error of 25-50 per cent (meaning the real figure could be 50 per cent higher or lower) and “should be used with caution”. If we look at experiences of domestic violence over a longer period, we find the proportion of male victims sharply falls.” The 2012 PSS also found that about 33 per cent of men said they had experienced an act of violence from a current partner since the age of 15. There was no standard error. This is the same proportion, not a “sharp fall”.
It claims, “When we look at other stats, the proportion of male victims also falls below one in three… Emergency departments: Two-thirds of patients presenting for family violence reasons were female.” This is exactly one in three, not a fall.
It claims, “When we look at other stats, the proportion of male victims also falls below one in three. Victoria’s 2016 Royal Commission into Family Violence compared several sources…”. The Royal Commission into Family Violence found (I quote), “Over the five years from July 2009, the proportion of male victims has increased and in 2013-14 male victims made up 31% (n=5,052) of total victims of family violence”. That’s pretty close to one in three.
Dr Salter claims, “For men experiencing violence from a female partner, it’s primarily self defensive or it’s expressive in terms of a push or a slap” without citing any research to support his claim.
It claims, “Some MRAs argue the one in three figure actually underestimates the number of male victims of domestic violence, because men are either too ashamed, too stoic, or too chivalrous to report being hit by their female partner… But apart from these anecdotal reports, there’s no other evidence to back up this claim, and no easy way of measuring this potential statistical bias.” The 2012 PSS found that men who have experienced partner violence are 2 to 3 times more likely than women to have never told anybody about experiencing current and/or previous partner violence; twice as likely as women to have never sought advice or support about experiencing current and/or previous partner violence; up to 40% more likely than women to have not contacted police about experiencing current and/or previous partner violence; and half as likely as women to have had a restraining order issued against the perpetrator of previous partner violence. See http://www.oneinthree.com.au/infographicrefs.
Michael Brandenburg said, “Certainly there’s a cohort of men who experience family violence… In our experience a significant number of those experience violence not by intimate partners, but from other family members.” The 2012 PSS found the vast majority of partner and dating violence committed against men is perpetrated by females (94%). Only 6% occurs in relationships with a male perpetrator. See http://www.oneinthree.com.au/infographicrefs.”

The Australian mainstream media have apparently learnt nothing from the marked backlash against the rude and biased treatment of film director Cassie Jaye on The Project and Sunrise TV programs.

It is so incredibly frustrating that they are unable to address men’s issues in a fair and objective manner, and simply provide the public with the facts and different opinions and let them form their own views.

The debate tonight is designed to try to inflict maximum damage on the men’s rights movement. It will only dig the media an even deeper hole in terms of their credibility in the eyes of the community. Instead of bringing people together and fostering understanding and consensus, media stunts like this simply set the scene for more lobbing of grenades from trench to trench.

Media coverage after the event:

Hack critique Pt. 2, by Gary Orsum (22 June 2017) Video

Hack Live: What happened when we debated male privilege (21 June 2017) with related Reddit discussion thread

Bettina Arndt tells why Cassie Jaye ditched Hack Live (20 June 2017) Video

Elsewhere in this blog you might be interested in reading:

Privilege, respect and entitlement

Female Privilege Check-list

Persistent pro-feminist and anti-male bias in the mainstream media

Another federal government domestic violence inquiry – This one focuses on family law

“On 16 March 2017, a Committee of the Australian Parliament adopted an inquiry into how Australia’s federal family law system can better support and protect people affected by family violence. The inquiry was referred by the Attorney-General, Senator the Hon. George Brandis Q.C. The Committee aims to make recommendations that will improve the system for all participants.” (Source)

Members of the public were able to provide feedback in the following ways:

An anonymous online questionnaire, open until 30 June 2017.

Community statements for individuals who wish to discuss their experiences of the treatment of family violence within the family law system with the committee.

Public hearings to gather evidence from stakeholders, including government agencies, non-government organisations, and experts in the policy area.

Written submissions addressing one or more of the terms of reference to be received by Wednesday, 3 May 2017.

The Chair of the Inquiry is Sarah Henderson MP, who is interviewed here on Sky News Australia. In this interview Ms Henderson unreservedly commends the work of Rosie Batty (strike 1), as well as mentioning some of the specific issues to be addressed in the Inquiry.

One such issue was the possibility of creating some sort of nexus between the nature of court orders made in relation to spousal support and property settlement, and the presence or alleged presence of family violence in the relationship. This is described in the Terms of Reference at point 4:

“How the family law system can better support people who have been subjected to family violence recover financially, including the extent to which family violence should be taken into account in the making of property division orders”

Men are already being blackmailed with allegations of domestic violence or sexual abuse in relation to child custody matters, and now it seems they will also have to worry about the impact of such allegations on their financial affairs (strike 2). How many more male suicides will this generate?

As of 21 June 2017, 114 public submissions have been uploaded onto the Committee’s web site. I tendered a brief submission which can be accessed here (see submission 113).

The Committee subsequently tabled its report in Parliament on 7 December 2017. The report, which makes 33 recommendations, is available to read on the Committee’s web page at this link. The media release for the tabling of the report can also be found at this link.

Under a 2010 resolution of the House of Representatives, the Government is required to respond to the report within six months. When the Government has provided a response it will be made available on the Committee’s web page.

Related media articles:

One in Three Campaign supplementary submission to Federal Parliamentary Inquiry published (24 October 2017)

Lone Fathers President To Address Parliament Inquiry On DV (28 July 2017)

‘Good men doing nothing‘ by Bettina Arndt (9 May 2017) with related Reddit discussion thread (see comment by ‘SantaOrange’)

Domestic Violence Inquiry To Take On The Family Law System (23 March 2017)